


The Question

by ficklefic (Kendarrr)



Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: Eavesdropping, F/F, Gap Filler, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24007396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendarrr/pseuds/ficklefic
Summary: It’s a stretch to call it a hobby but Aster Flores likes to sit in the Squahamish Church confessional and...talk. This time, not realizing that Ellie sat on the other side of the confessional, able to hear her.Plus a longer goodbye scene as a balm for my soul.
Relationships: Ellie Chu/Aster Flores
Comments: 17
Kudos: 377





	The Question

**Author's Note:**

> A fic written in response to the knowledge that there is “a deleted scene of Aster in a confessional booth talking about her feelings of confusion/romance/life while Ellie is secretly on the other side that did not make the movie.” ([source](https://uswnt.tumblr.com/post/616973016121901056/hello-911-id-like-to-report-a-robbery))
> 
> A few liberties that I took:  
> 1) I have no idea what denomination of Christianity Squahamish's church is, so I said Catholic as it's the one I'm most familiar with.  
> 2) Timeline. This fic is mostly told in Aster's POV, so it fills in the gaps, so to speak.  
> 3) The final scene.

SQUAHAMISH CATHOLIC CHURCH, 2:26 PM - TWO DAYS AFTER ASTER AND ELLIE HUNG OUT TOGETHER

Ellie yawned for the fifth time that day. The eleven muscles required to do so stretching taut. In Squahamish’s church, the early afternoon light filtered through the stained glass panes. A scatter of red, yellow, and green-tainted sunbeams pooled on the floor as the choir director once again directed the altos’ attention to the music sheet laid out before them.

She could accompany the choir in her sleep, and she truly was tempted to pull the lid over the piano keys, put her arms above it, and nap for however long it would take before they were ready to take the song from the top again. Normally, she would not even be this sleepy, but given… certain circumstances that now fumbled out of her control and careened into something that consumed her… well, what was a girl to do?

The choir director put her hands up and exhaled, and Ellie was ready for the drop of the baton. They rehearsed for the upcoming mass, using the same songs, all the time. As soon as they finished, Ellie took the time arranging her sheet music according to play order, smiling politely as the singers bade her their hasty goodbyes.

She yawned again in the quiet of the now-empty church. But it wasn’t exactly _empty_ —Father Shanley took confessions every Saturday but really, the old priest spent that time asleep in the cramped confessional booth, his snores kept trapped within the booth’s walls. Ellie took her bag and bike helmet and crept towards the confessional booth. Really, this bordered on sacrilegious, but she had not been sleeping well lately thanks to thinking so much about Aster Flores. So really, this was all her fault.

Every time Ellie thought back on that day they spent together, her guts, or was it her heart, clutched like a vice inside her ribs. She looked so vulnerable, her hair wet and swept back behind her while they floated together in the hot spring until it was three in the morning and she had yet to fall asleep.

Ellie rested the back of her head against the wall and settled into the rickety wooden seat of the confessional. Father Shanley’s snores rumbled through the partition. So Ellie got comfortable. Found herself thinking about the way a certain girl smiled, how she tucked her hair behind her ear, the way her laughter would bubble out of her until her body shook… Wondered what it would be like to have that glitter in her eyes directed towards her more and more and more.

+

Aster knew that the church sat empty after the one o’clock choir rehearsals every Saturday. She also knew that Father Shanley sat in the confessional booth, but no one came since he was decisively out of it that there was no way the penances he gave would be reasonable. Her father doled out fifty hail marys which seemed a lot, sure, but Father Shanley demanded a thousand, which was why bulk of the congregation stopped confessing to him altogether. Which was why Father Shanley now slept in the booth.

It was all the same to Aster, really. She stopped going to confession for sin absolution since she was fifteen. But she still liked to sit in the quiet, almost stifling silence of the confessional booth with only the snores of Father Shanley accompanying her inner monologues. The heels of her shoes clicked against the floor, the sound echoed up to the rafters. She slid the curtains aside and sat. Out of habit, she did the sign of the cross.

+

Ellie stiffened at the sound of escalating footsteps. She lifted her legs onto the seat and hugged them close to her chest. Stopped breathing when the other booth now held someone within.

And when the familiar, musical sound of Aster’s voice came through the other side, Ellie sat, immobile.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned…”

+

“Well, I’m not really here to confess, am I?” Aster chuckled. From where she sat, she saw the emptied hall of the church through the slit the green curtains left. “It’s just habit at this point. A way to break the silence, I guess.”

She swallowed hard and stared at the pool of light gathered in her palms. Charcoal remnants from her earlier fervent sketching remained in the creases, and she closed her hand around that beam of light, only to have it now dripping on her closed fist. “This might not be news to you, but I’m so… confused. I thought I knew what it took to be a good daughter, which—I still do, I _think_ , but knowing is not the same as _being_ , right? ”

Aster sighed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is… I met someone. He’s a nice guy—in a golden retriever puppy kind of way. And I know I shouldn’t judge by external impressions alone, but he never struck me as someone with such complex inner thoughts. I’m still caught by surprise when we text, late at night, but say nothing to each other the next day. It’s almost as if I’m talking to two people.”

+

Inside the privacy of her booth, Ellie freaked the _fuck_ out.

This was blasphemous, sacrilegious, a desecration of all that was holy.

But she could not leave—not without alerting Aster of her presence.

And she had no idea which was worse.

“I really shouldn’t judge,” Aster repeated. “A single person can have thoughts and opinions about existentialism and abstract art one night and then run sprints the next morning, right? That’s not completely out of reason—people can contain multitudes.”

Ellie heard Aster sigh once more. It was those sighs that made Ellie’s gut clench. How she sounded so lonely that it was no wonder Aster said the things she said at the hot springs. No wonder she leapt at the chance to write back to Paul/Ellie. And Ellie did not blame her. She starved for intellectual conversation, just like her, so they clung to each other like the gutted remains of a shipwreck, floating amidst the wreckage of SS Squahamish.

“But is it possible to feel safe with one person, and then feel… not-safe the next? Or am I the problem? I feel so inconsistent, I can’t—I don’t think I’m making sense. Maybe that’s love? Not making sense? I don’t—I don’t know how to feel around him. If it’s even love or something approaching it. But at night,” Aster expelled an uneasy laughter. “It sure feels close to it.”

Swallowing back the desire to assuage, Ellie dug her nails against her knees. It bit through the fabric of her jeans and she had to struggle to breathe quietly so that Aster would not hear her. Her heart thundered on and all she could do was bite her lip, remain silent and unseen.

+

Aster rested her forehead against her palms and heaved another sigh out of her body. “I spent time with his friend the other day,” she said. Her voice trembled. If she sounded unsure before, she sure as hell was unsure now. “And something about her… she looked at me funny. Like she can’t believe that I’m in front of her. But when we got to talking, it was familiar, almost. How she looked at me like she—” her voice cracked and her knuckles turned pale. “Knew me. Understood me, somehow.”

“It’s dangerous, I know. To even entertain this—whatever _this_ is. But how can I be sure if I don’t doubt? How can I know if I don’t guess a few times before landing on what I truly believe?” Staring at the faded jade curtains, Aster twirled a lock of her hair, wound it around her index finger. “I wish I could just ask her. A look can mean so many different things that it might as well not mean anything at all. But in a small town like Squahamish, it might be too dangerous.”

+

Ellie swallowed hard like there was a bullet lodged in her throat. Ask her _what_? What _was_ dangerous?

She was not even supposed to hear this so really, she was in no position to demand clarity.

“I wondered a few times if she coaches him on what to text me—I wouldn’t be surprised at this point. She does run a business of putting words in other people’s mouths,” Aster continued to speak above the constant drone of Father Shanley’s snores. Her voice, a quiet and hesitant thing. “If that is the case, then… Who am I really falling for? Maybe it’s her. That I’m…”

Silence followed for a pulse, and then came the creak of Aster rising to her feet. She left the confessional booth while Ellie stared at receding figure through the gaps in the curtains. Aster in her pink and white floral dress, her jean jacket, the bountiful waves of her hair trailing behind her.

Maybe it’s her _what_? That she’s _what_?

Ellie stumbled out of the too-cramped booth, her helmet clattering against the parquet flooring. Father Shanley snorted and burst into a tirade he likely was exclaiming in his dreams. That was the problem with internal monologues, Ellie thought. Anyone who eavesdrops is in the wrong so you get to speak in incomplete sentences or unclear thoughts because you only need to make sense to yourself and no one else.

She gathered her things and headed out into the vacant parking lot. Mounted her bike and went home with the rising feeling of something akin to a restless hope tucked inside her.

+

SQUAHAMISH FOOTBALL “STADIUM”, 4:27 PM - AFTER THE FOOTBALL GAME

Aster grinned to herself as she ducked under the bleachers and into the dark, barely-lit halls of the stadium. The painted blue walls caused her footsteps to echo. Overhead she could hear the continued cheers of the locals for the first Squahamish touchdown in fifteen years. For a team that lost 49-6, they sure sounded ecstatic.

She approached the small room with the vending machine, heard the clatter of a multitude of plastic bottles falling to the floor. And two familiar voices.

“What are you doing?”

“Y-y-you don’t want me to kiss you?”

“No!”

Aster stopped by the doorway, staring at the scene before her. Paul and Ellie. Both looking distraught, bottles of Yakult spilled on the floor between them.

“Why? I-is there someone else?”

Ellie gaped up at Paul and a soft sound from the way Aster’s heart clenched like a fist spilled out of her lips. Ellie looked first at her reflection in the rusted vending machine plating and then towards her. “Aster!”

The breathless way Ellie said her name _ached_. “Aster! This is not—we-we’re not—”

In that handful of seconds, Aster had no idea what she felt, so her confusion must have been in the forefront of her expression. She turned away to go towards the direction where she came, head lowered. The duration of those seconds seemed to stretch and yawn, eleven of her muscles stretched to their limits when she thought about the way Ellie looked, the way Ellie sounded. In her rush to explain herself, Aster left knowing that what was presently happening in that cramped space with its flickering overhead lightbulb and floors sticky with soda and Yakult was between the two of them. Even though she wanted to stay. Even though she wanted to know how everything panned out.

Why do feelings have to be so damn complicated? Aster broke through the underground hallway and squinted under the bright sunshine The football players remained, hauling their gear into their respective trucks. A festive mood permeated the air but Aster only felt all hollowed out, restless and impatient for something to conclude—or to begin.

+

SQUAHAMISH CATHOLIC CHURCH, 8:29 AM - SUNDAY SERVICE

Aster stormed out of the church, leaving behind a chorus of shouts, fighting, arguments. The last thing she saw was Ellie looking at her with that same look—the look that confused her and filled her with doubt over everything she wanted to believe to be true. When she nodded her assent to Trig’s… it wasn’t even a _proposal_ —he just asked her if she will. _Will_ what? And she nodded like an idiot.

That’s where Ellie was wrong, she supposed.

But in the end, Ellie _saved_ her. Shouted what rang in her brain like the peal of the church bell. A sharp, resounding no. Full of conviction. Full of assurance that _no_ , she should not marry Trig. Aster slumped into her car and gripped the pleather of the wheel until it squeaked in her grasp. The storm of her head raged and raged, nothing but grey fog and heavy skies ahead of her.

And yet… she would rather have this confusion, this discomfort a million times over than be complacent in crafting the painting of her life, which she nearly was.

With the one thing that she was sure of—that it was _Ellie_ all along, through the late nights, through the lines of conversation that bordered on danger, Aster drove away from the clamour of the church to find her own kind of peace.

+

SQUAHAMISH STATION, 9:06 AM - THREE HOURS BEFORE ELLIE LEAVES FOR IOWA

Ellie stared at the ceiling of her room. She had been doing so for the past three hours, unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking about Aster’s lips. How kissing her felt like having petals in her mouth, and just as soft. Again with the sleepless nights thanks to this girl. Ellie squirmed, restless. Could not resist lifting her fingers to her bottom lip, eyes closed in remembrance.

God, how could she even think she would forget?

She rose to her feet and stiffened when she heard the crunch of gravel outside. She peered through her window, eyes wide. Standing beside the station master’s booth was Aster. She met Ellie’s gaze and jerked her head. Within five minutes, Ellie was downstairs in her pajamas and her jacket. She said good morning in passing to her dad who was in front of the sink, washing a plate, and headed downstairs.

“What are you doing here?” Ellie asked, a little breathless not from climbing down the stairs but from the way Aster squinted under the bright sun.

“I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t say a proper goodbye,” Aster said, hands tucked inside the pockets of her olive green jacket. She swayed like a shy schoolgirl in her floral print dress, her high-top black sneakers. Ellie smiled. Never thought of herself as a soft person until Aster Flores met her gaze and offered a half smile that would weaken anyone’s knees—but especially Ellie’s. Aster cocked her head and soon Ellie found herself in the same cramped booth she had been sitting in since she was thirteen, sitting side by side with Aster. She was not claustrophobic, never was. And especially not now.

“It’s not like you won’t be seeing me again. I’ll go home during weekends. And you still have me on Ghost Messenger.”

Their knees collided. Ellie could smell the fresh-milled flour wafting off Aster. “I know,” she said. After a minute, she asked, “how long do you think it takes to be sure?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On the person’s convictions,” Ellie said, mulling it over. “On the circumstances.”

“How sure are you?”

Ellie saw herself reflected in Aster’s dark eyes and fought hard to look away. “As sure as the train that will come at 12:10 today.”

“Give or take a few hours?”

Ellie smiled and nodded. “Give or take a few hours.”

“For what it’s worth,” Aster’s voice was quiet, but in the silence of the morning, it was enough. “I don’t think I need a couple of years.”

“What?” Ellie snorted. “One kiss was enough to convince you?”

“Hey! It was a good kiss!” Aster burst out laughing, and Ellie could not resist her grin. In that moment, Ellie was convinced this was love. Sure, it was the other things too—messy, horrible, selfish, bold—but it was _this_ , too. Feeling that the moment could last unto eternity but be over in a blink. Where nothing makes sense—not time, not gravity. Because why do they call it falling in love when it felt anything but? Looking at Aster, really looking and _seeing_ her, how it could be anything but rising in love?

She had no idea who leaned in first. There was the unspoken understanding, and then Ellie kissed Aster again. Or was it Aster who kissed Ellie? Either way, her mouth was on her mouth, and Ellie could taste the smile on her lips. Sweetness and light.

Ellie swallowed back the ineffable joy that rose in her throat. “You know… I don’t need to go to Iowa to find something to believe in,” she admitted.

To this, Aster said nothing. Only, she grinned. Ducked her head, and Ellie found no greater joy than this.

**Author's Note:**

> When Alice Wu said "endings are tricky because we expect answers," I wondered if it was true. In my case, I'm always glad to have more questions than answers because it lets me do this—write fic and speculate.


End file.
